Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader

**Overview**:
**Work type**:Full time

**Salary**:Salary not specified

**Grade**:Classroom Teacher Range 2

**Occupation**: Education and Training

**Location**: Parkville

**Reference**: 1465080

**Location Profile**:
Yalingbu Yirramboi - The Royal Children¿s Hospital School (YYRCHS) was officially registered as a Victorian Government school in June 2024.

YYRCHS keeps students connected to their education by bridging the gap between hospital, home, and their base education setting.

Educators design and deliver targeted and individualised learning to improve valued student outcomes (academic, developmental, physical, social, and emotional wellbeing). We set our learners up for success by ensuring they experience continuous engagement in learning. We are dedicated to empowering students and caregivers, advocating for their needs, and fostering a supportive environment for them to become champions of their own education post-hospital discharge.

Learners at YYRCHS are a transient student cohort, who receive education interventions on a short or long-term basis dependant on eligibility and educational risk.

Teachers meet new patients to discuss their learning needs and determine the appropriate level of educational support. Eligible students will be offered individual (bedside) learning, or group (classroom) learning experiences, or a combination of both.

Each student receives an Individual Education Plan (IEP) prepared in collaboration with the student, families/carers, multidisciplinary treatment teams and the base educational setting. The IEP is reviewed regularly and updated in line with the student's educational progress.

**Early Years**

Our hospital kindergarten program is led by qualified early childhood educators who, through engaging play-based learning, help prepare children for school.

**Primary**

The school offers an evidence-based program that is built on high-impact teaching and wellbeing strategies and underpinned by the Victorian Curriculum, with a focus on literacy and numeracy.

**Secondary, VCE and Senior Secondary Pathways**

Specialist teachers assist secondary and senior secondary students to remain connected to their studies during a hospital stay, with a focus on educational tasks assigned by their base school.

**School Transitions**

A team of skilled education professionals facilitates smooth transitions for children and young people as they re-enter or enrol in appropriate educational settings, while serving as advocates for all stakeholders involved.

**Selection Criteria**:

- SC1 'Content of teaching and learning¿. Demonstrated ability to inform and influence the work of others involved in the engagement, mental health, wellbeing or learning of children and young people.
- SC2 'Teaching practice¿. Demonstrated ability to input into the development, implementation and evaluation of processes and strategies relating to mental health, wellbeing or learning.
- SC3 'Assessment and reporting of student learning¿. Demonstrated ability to support a student¿s mental health, wellbeing or learning by developing and maintaining connection with external services.
- SC4 'Interaction with the school community¿. Demonstrated high level interpersonal skills and communication skills. Demonstrated high level of capability to establish and maintain collaborative relationships with students, parents, other employees and the broader school community to focus on student learning, wellbeing and engagement.
- SC5 'Professional requirements¿. Demonstrated ability to influence and negotiate by gaining buy-in and ownership for ideas, gaining agreement to proposals, or involving experts or other third parties to strengthen a case.

SC6 'Ability to work in a complex environment¿. Capacity to demonstrate resilience, composure, and compassion in a medical environment and its associated challenges.
- Please provide a cover letter, resume and a written response to key selection criteria._
- This position is a dual role, with 0.5FTE for the Mental Health & Wellbeing Leader and 0.5FTE as a classroom teacher._

**Role**:
The Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health System highlighted that primary schools provide opportunities to identify children with mental health and wellbeing challenges, who can then be referred to treatment, care and support.

The Mental Health in Primary Schools program is being expanded to every government and low-fee non-government primary school in Victoria. Scaling up across the state from 2023, by 2026 every primary school will be able to employ a Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader to implement a whole-school approach to wellbeing.

The Department of Education and Training has been piloting the Mental Health in Primary Schools program in Victorian schools since 2020 in partnership with the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. Evaluation of this pilot program has shown that 95 per cent of Mental H